


Those Green Beans Tho

by persnickett



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: M/M, TMR Discord Anniversary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 04:05:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17655767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persnickett/pseuds/persnickett
Summary: “I like watching you smile. Might be one of my favourite things to do, actually."





	Those Green Beans Tho

**Author's Note:**

> The TMR Discord is celebrating its one year anniversary today. This is just a little gift. 
> 
> SMILE, lovelies. <3

 

“There ya go, that’s the way,” Newt says, squinting against the sun to grin at him encouragingly. “Reckon you’ll settle in just fine pretty soon.” 

 

Thomas smiles appreciatively. He likes being out here with Newt a lot better than he liked working with the Slicers.

 

There’s a trick to this, sort of, once you’ve figured it out. The vines start to grow downward, once they outgrow their stakes, twining around themselves and taking hold with clinging, curling little tendrils.

 

The trick is to find the bottom and start there, slowly unwinding them where they’ve grown in around themselves, softly cajoling them apart instead of just pulling from the top. Taking them back the way they came.

 

Thomas watches Newt unsheathe the machete he always keeps strapped to his back, angling the tip expertly in between the vine’s broad leaves to neatly sever the twine binding it. Then when his blade is stowed again and he’s satisfied Thomas has the vine carefully well in hand, Newt wraps practiced hands around the old wooden stake, jaw setting and lean muscles shifting momentarily as he pulls it neatly from the earth to toss it down the row of plants they are working on and out onto the grass.

 

“It gets better, you know,” he says, pausing a second as he sets the new, taller stake in place to look around them at the groups of boys working various jobs all over the Glade. All with the same confidence and ease. “Everybody here was a Greenie once.”

 

The sun is hot, and Newt has his pullover off and tied around his waist. Thomas can see he’s not the only one with perspiration starting to spring on his forearms and the back of his neck. But there’s the hint of a breeze, and the bees make a pleasant, drowsy hum around them in the bright red flowers that grace the vines here and there.

 

 _Runner beans_ , Newt had called them. Ironic.

 

Thomas doesn’t mention it though. He promised Newt he would stop. Stop asking about how to become a Runner. Stop asking about the giant freakin’ Maze surrounding them, towering miles high overhead. The monolithic walls leaning in over them from every side like they’re watching, eternally peering over their shoulders.

 

Beckoning.

 

“After a while you don’t think about it so much anymore,” Newt says, with a nod over his shoulder and upward, in the very direction of Thomas’ thoughts. How had he known? “…Well, at least not every minute.”

 

“Why are you so nice to me?”

_Doofus thing to ask_ , Thomas thinks.

 

It’s just that not everybody here is. He can hear Gally hollering a blue streak at one of his Builders team right this minute, from practically all the way across the Glade.

 

Then as always, even when he’s not really expecting him to, Newt actually answers his question.

 

“I like watching you smile. Might be one of my favourite things to do, actually. If you haven’t noticed, there’s not all that much going ’round here, in the way of entertainment.”

 

And also as always, Newt’s answers are hardly ever what he expects. Thomas looks up at him in surprise, a quick huff of laughter escaping him – maybe his first since he got here.

 

The look he finds on Newt’s face is unexpected too. His eyes are dancing mischievously before dropping in the direction of his mouth – as smugly saying ‘ _there_ it is,’ as if he had said the words out loud.

 

The only possible outcome ensues: it just makes him smile all the wider, making Newt of course do the same.

 

Which, for some sudden reason, makes Thomas start to blush.

 

Newt notices. Thomas _sees_ him notice. His eyes go sort of blank, and he bites his bottom lip. Then he clears his throat and looks away, back down at their work.

 

Which is maybe okay because Thomas’ whole face feels like it’s basically on fire by this point, right up to the tips of his ears. _God_ , what is his problem?

 

“Oi, watch it!” Newt’s exclamation is like a cup of cold water over the flames now licking down the sides of his neck, and maybe even somehow catching alight somewhere in his chest. “Not so hard, Greenie. You’re meant to be holding it steady, not crushing the lovin’ life out of it!”

 

Thomas barely stifles a chastised little yelp, as he hurriedly lets go of the beanstalk, letting it fall into Newt’s cradling hands. And then it is all he can do to stand there helplessly, watching Newt tilt his head to the side as he holds the vine up straight the way Thomas had been supposed to do, and examines the damage.

 

Newt’s long slender fingers are calloused by work and smudged with earth, and there is obvious evidence that when they’re not busy swinging a machete or fixing dumb Greenie mistakes, Newt bites his nails. For now, they move delicately, lifting the edge of each leaf with a genuine, gentle concern for the bruised plant that should really be no surprise. It’s part of what Thomas…

 

likes about him. _Why_ is his heart beating so fast?

 

“Zart,” Newt murmurs then, and Thomas’ eye catches the sunlit way the boy’s blond head turns at the relatively quiet sound of his name, from the next row over. He tries not to think how it means he’s probably been listening this whole time. “We could use a couple of hands here. Greenie, if you want to be useful, go and—"

 

“Fertlizer,” Thomas grumbles, before he can finish. “Yeah, yeah.”

 

At least by the time he has the trowel in hand, he can see Newt is already smirking amusedly to himself once again as he waits for Zart to fetch him the twine.

 

....

 

Newt was right of course, Thomas thinks, as he tries to regain his footing among the dried leaves and treacherous, tripping-hazard roots and twigs that litter the forest floor. He isn’t thinking about the Maze every minute, not anymore.

 

He isn’t thinking about the way the bucket bumping and battering constantly against his thigh is probably going to end up leaving a bruise, and the most likely way he’s going to find the shuck fertilizer at this point is by stepping in it.

 

He hasn’t really been able to think about anything much at all, since he stumbled away from the garden trellises with his mouth dry and his palms damp. And his heart beating a very confusing little tattoo against the cage of his ribs.

 

Except maybe that look. The way the slanting afternoon sunlight danced off a pair of dark brown eyes. The barest pink little tip of tongue, poking teasingly out between a set of even, white teeth that definitely shouldn’t make him wonder crazy things like whether they would feel sharp if they touched his skin.

 

They looked like they would.

 

Thomas stops and looks up through the leaves above him, into dappling sunlight and warm blue sky. The walls of the Maze still soar overhead – high and imposing and stony-cold-forbidding, dripping green with mocking ivy.

 

But he isn’t quite as worried about it, not right this minute.

 

Because the only thing in his head resembling a coherent thought right at the moment, is how to get Newt to look at him that way again.

 


End file.
